Mascot

Note, I didn't really expect my post to get any major responses like this. I guess this answer is a bit OT, though since it details why I'm currently "un-attached" from UC it's not way OT at least. quote:And unless and until you have actually played a single Commander career up to his retirementI'd love to. When does the AE retire? Or, more to the point, what would I do until that point? I'm the commander of a huge military starship. My mission (as I'm roleplaying it) is to combat major threats. I can't find any. My carrier is like an indestructible wave of death against anything the enemy has thrown at me so far. quote:and you have amassed a fleetWhat would I use it for (I do have fleet command)? I never even launch my fighters anymore. Originally I launched them to take care of enemy fighters, but probably due to the ineptitude of the pilots on both sides they just took ages without killing eachother (I once *ate dinner* and came back to find them still running circles around eachother). Once I discovered my PTAs took out any number of fighters in a matter of seconds my own fighers no longer served a purpose apart from giving the pilots a way to earn their pay. I kept launching them for a while longer to roleplay realistm, but I couldn't keep that up for very long. What kind of commander would I be to waste time and resources on sending out fighters when the enemy happily flies into my PTA solution regardless of their craft's status. quote:Capturing stations and making money is *not* what the game is aboutIn roam mode, isn't the game about what the player makes of it? Apart from a brief test of the BCM beta ages ago, I had few preconceptions about the game. I bought it to be the commander of a starship. To explore and battle. I do know that ignores some of the options the game has (notably, surface FPS and tactical combat), I just didn't expect the battles to be impossible to lose nor the exploring being limited to clicking on zones on planets hoping to see something worth investigating. quote:that why the IA and ACM scenarios have clear goals in that they have a begin and end phaseYou got me there (and I see a yell coming ). I never played the scenarios (apart from the tutorial). It was a conscious decision. I wanted freeform exploring, not scripted situations. To be honest, I even forgot there were scenarios until you mentioned it just now. Feel free to slap me. I'll have a look at them. I must admit though, I don't have high hopes they'll give me a renewed interest in the roam mode once done (I'd be quite happy to be proven wrong on that count). quote:If the goal was about making money, capturing stations and being done with it, then you've probably already got back your $19.99 I think.I didn't say it wasn't worth the 20 bucks based on what fun I got out of it already. I had fun for a few evenings (and the scenarios I forgot about should give a few more I expect). What I miss is unlocking the months of enjoyment "everybody else" around here are getting out of it. From my current point of view, the only way to do that is to use my imagination to create the game, as opposed to the game and my imagination combined creating the experience. For example, I tried to be a "protector". Idea being to patrol an area and protect friendly ships. After a good number of tiny friendlies a slap away from a hullbreach decided to fly across the sector to attack a fully shielded enemy cruiser, I gave up. There may be a good reason why the AI feels suicide is something to be sought, but I just can't find a way to RPG myself into making up a sane reason. quote:As I write this, I can bet anything that you haven't even made enough EPs, medals, achieved sufficient goals etc, to call deem yourself worthy of command.I can't really say much about that without knowing what you feel makes one worthy of command. Since you made the game though, and the game feels I'm worthy of the title supreme commander based on the medals I've earned, I guess you must at least partially feel I'm worthy quote:Just because when the klaxxon goes off, you merrily continue reading your book, doesn't mean anything other than the NPCs that happened to show up at the time, are incompetent.Agreed wholeheartedly. Which brings me back to my original question (don't think I spelled it out though). Where do I find competent ones? Or when? quote:you're going to be playing for the better part of 3-4 months to even get ANYWHERE near command of a cap ship.Sounds most excellent. Assuming those months are fun, of course quote:Doing that in a single player game is just a waste of time (for a game like this) because of the use of save/reload which is usually abused to no end.I abuse the save feature a lot. Though the reason being a slight CTD problem I'm having with the game so it's for a good reason. I've never had any other reasons to reload. I'll say this though. For whatever reason (I can't point my finger at anything in particular), this game breeds an almost instant refusal to reload instead of reparing. One of the more enjoyable moments I had was having a ship full of intruders, happily blasting away at my life support. I didn't think it would last much longer so to save time I captured the nearest enemy station (think the nearest friendly station was a few jumps away). Just as I was about to dock though, CTD. Point being, even with an always recent savegame available due to the CTD problem, just reloading didn't even enter my mind. You worked some real magic in that aspect of the game. Finally, I'd like to make it clear I'm voicing my opinion about the game based on my experience with it and that again being a result of what *I* tried to play the game as. I'm not asking for any changes to be made, I'm not saying it's a pile of crud. I'm saying I can't quite find anything more interesting to do in it, and I'm open to suggestions. In fact, I'd say it's almost worth the $20 even for no other reason than to show support for a developer that has an unfaltering dedication to his work. Then again, I actually donate to freeware projects so I'm probably not to be trusted

quote:When the alerts sound, I dive straight in, and it's nail biting and edge of the seat panic for a bit.I've played the game off and on in much the same way, but I have yet to experience this. When the alarm goes off I generally finish the page or so before putting it down to take care of business. My ship has never been damaged by external forces. I'm not even sure my shields have gone below 50%. The only threat I feel in UC are intruders, and that's a very slim threat since docking at a friendly station eliminates it pretty much instantly, and capturing an enemy station in order to dock with it takes only a few minutes. After capturing or destroying every station I could find (I thought setting that goal for myself would give me weeks of playtime to reach, turns out it was an evening's "work"), I must admit I couldn't find many more reasons to load the game up again. I haven't been able to think of any goals to set myself that I'd find fun and challenging to accomplish without imposing limits that would in turn break my immersion (like attacking a base, on foot, alone). Is my fantasy too limited or am I just too early in the game for the AI to offer any resistance (I'm about 4 days in I think)? I so love the vision of the game. But I am having a hard time finding "my" game in it.

quote:If you were'nt cheating, then you deserve a medalIt was my impression the tutorial was designed to make it very difficult or nigh on impossible to die. Hope you have a stack of medals laying about

I don't mean to be a pest, but what checksum algorithm did you pick? When md5 failed I went and found utilities for another 12 different algorithms without being able to find one resembling what you posted. Either both my downloads are corrupt (though I'm playing fine), or I'm a complete nitwit (wouldn't be the first time), or I just can't figure out what you've used.

Would it be a good idea to post a checksum along with the announcement or download link? There's plenty of freeware tools around to verify checksums (at least the most common ones) and it'd enable people to verify whether the problem is indeed a corrupt download or not.

quote:So, I guess you know more than I do?It was an observation not made previously in the thread. Isn't that the entire point of keeping a thread like this open? quote:So tell me what I'm doing wrong so I can fix it.Where did I say you're doing anything wrong? All I said was that I'm running the same drivers you are, and if you're having the problem and I'm not, logic dictates there's more to the story than just driver version. It won't happen again.

quote:Graphics driver problem, nothing I can do about it. It works fine here.It can't be purely down to the graphics drivers. I'm running Cat 4.4 as you are, and I'm seeing the same thing with the jumpgates (nowhere else so far, but I've only played a few hours).

Lighten up SC. If you read my first post it was a QUESTION as to whether the EB exclusive was in fact as exclusive as it seemed. And whether that did indeed impact foreign buyers in the way it would seem to do. It was not a badger to change anything. It was not a call to airdrop free copies over a few continents. It was a question for clarification. Which has now been given. Case closed, nothing further on the matter need adressing as far as I'm concerned.

That sounds like a very good way to alienate a fanbase. "Yeah I know y'all love the game. But you aren't gonna be able to buy it for at least 3 months after release unless you shell out a few tens of bucks extra for shipping and all." While it's perfectly understandable things get released in Europe a bit later than in the US, cause the US simply is so big it sucks up the first few batches of units, it seems a strange choice to lock out most of the world for three months by choice. (Assuming this exclusive is for US EB only) Oh well, time will tell I guess.

I recently learned of the EB exclusive. Unless I'm mistaken I also read elsewhere that Derek wasn't necessarily going to choose any other distributor after the EB 90 day exclusive expires. This seems to suck rather a bit to foreign fans. Adding p&p, local vat and import tax brings BCM up to easily $75 total (yes, I know from bitter experience). While one can say "Hey, it's still worth it, isn't it?", I'd counter with "Yes, but that's $25 to the frickin government and others, not Smart & co". There's a reason the street price is <$50. If it would sell just as much at $75 chances are rather good it would be priced to fit. It thus seems likely BCM is gonna lose out bigtime on the European market as it will be 1) Harder to get (having to order online as opposed to stopping by the store and getting the game instantly), and 2) Rather more expensive than most are going to considering paying. Noone wants BCM to enter Europe via anonymous ftp instead of in shrink wrap. Please tell me I'm wrong here and there are actually some euro distributor in the works. Edit: Make that "foreign fans in countries with no EB outlets". [ 06-07-2001: Message edited by: Mascot ]